Note: The below is an updated version of a post first published in March 2017. Since DOE is preparing for its revised FY2019 budget submission and Congress is already holding hearings about DOE priorities, the subject of a fast neutron facility has reentered the advanced nuclear energy conversation. There is a known gap in fast […]

Atomic fission is an abundant, natural source of heat from materials that have few competing uses. The heat released by completely fissioning actinide source materials like uranium, thorium or plutonium is 1-10 million times as much as burning the same mass of typical combustible materials. That energy dense fuel reduces the complexity and operational importance […]

The Independent System Operator for the New England power grid (ISO-NE) has produced a summary brief describing the challenges associated with Arctic Outbreak 2017-2018, a period of substantially below normal temperatures that lasted from Dec.25, 2017 until Jan. 8, 2018. After describing the intensity of the cold wave with a number of graphs, charts, images […]

NuScale, a leader in the increasingly competitive field of advanced nuclear reactor design, has announced that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviewers issued a document that formally agrees that their design does not require any electrical power to achieve safe shutdown. It’s difficult to explain the importance of that regulatory position. People with experience […]

Urenco, Bruce Power and AMEC NSS Limited recently announced that they had signed an MOU to cooperate in the design, licensing and development of Urenco’s U-Battery micro nuclear system for the Canadian electricity and heat market. The U-Battery contains a 10 MWth nuclear heat source that can be configured to produce either 4 MWe plus […]

Since 2014, investor-focused publications have used terms like ‘awash in oil’, ‘oil glut’ and even ‘world is “drowning” in oil’ to describe the world’s stockpile of already extracted and stored inventory of crude oil. Similar phrases have also been occasionally used to describe inventories of various refined products like gasoline, distillate fuel oil, and kerosene. […]

I apologize for the virtual silence here over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been keeping up a fairly active presence on Twitter, posting short updates and getting involved in a few serious conversations as time allows. Even if you do not have a Twitter account, you can read my feed at https://twitter.com/Atomicrod?s=17 One topic […]

The Georgia Public Service Commission unanimously approved a plan to continue the Vogtle Expansion Project. Georgia Power, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southern Company, immediately accepted the deal contained in the plan and will continue moving forward with due diligence and effort. The announced decisions made me even more confident that there is strong […]

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Early this morning, Senate Republicans passed a tax reform package. Despite passing generous, deficit-increasing legislation that includes many provisions that favor corporations and most forms of energy production, it did not include an extension of the operational deadline that must be met to qualify for the nuclear production tax credit. In my analysis, there is […]

Advanced nuclear development projects have made some significant steps during 2017. I met – via Skype – with representatives of three of the projects yesterday. Several more were invited, but were busy doing business even on a Sunday evening. The three who were able to attend were Seth Grae, the CEO of Lightbridge (NASDAQ: LTBR), […]

Greentech Media recently published another article claiming that there is a new report that supports its contention that the NOPR – Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to establish a Grid Resilience Pricing Rule – Sec. of Energy Perry sent to FERC is misguided. I cannot help but wonder if the author read the report. If he […]